Media access control (MAC) method applicable to wireless sensor network

The invention provides a media access control (MAC) method applicable to wireless sensor network, which can adjust the sending process according to the characteristic that the data traffic of the node is time-varying in the specific application of the wireless sensor network. The MAC method comprises the following steps: estimating the current data traffic intensity by measuring the time intervals of data packet arrivals, and adopting a filter to reduce the interference in the measurement; carrying out the self-adaptive control by detecting the queue length of the current data packet of the node, if the queue length of the data packet is larger than 1, batch-sending the data packets in the queue in a burst-transmission manner so as to reduce delay and energy consumption, and if not, judging by the currently measured data traffic; and if the current data traffic value is smaller than the given threshold, enabling the low-traffic self-adaptive mechanism, and if not, removing unnecessary wake-up cycles by the node. The method dispenses with the on-line adjustment of the cycle and the duty cycle of the protocol, avoids the problem of the difficult synchronization between nodes and effectively solves the major problems of the synchronization and the data traffic self-adaption in the existing wireless sensor network.